The desire to have the hair retain a particular style or shape is widely held. The most common methodology for accomplishing this is by spraying a composition, typically from a mechanical pump spray device or from a pressurized aerosol canister, to the hair. Other means of providing style or shaping to the hair are mousses, gels, lotions and the like. Such compositions provide temporary setting benefits and can usually be removed by water or by shampooing. The materials used in these types of hair styling compositions are generally resins, gums, and adhesive polymers which are capable of imparting style or shape to the hair. For example, anionic polymers are typically employed as hair styling polymers since they have good style/hold properties.
Certain styling products that are commonly used on wet or damp hair (e.g., mousses, gels, spray-on gels, etc.--hence called "wet styling products") often contain nonionic hold polymers, cationic hold/conditioning polymers or combinations thereof Polymers traditionally used in wet styling products are PVP, PVP/IVA, and polyquaternium-type polymers. While they provide good style/hold, anionic polymers are not typically found in wet styling products. The primary reason for their non-use is that they provide poor combing and feel attributes on wet or damp hair even though they tend to provide good style hold. In many cases, wet combing with an anionic polymer based composition can be worse than combing untreated wet hair. Thus, this wet combing negative poses a significant problem to the wet styling product consumer. Although cationic conditioning polymers are typically added to nonionic polymers to improve combing and feel on wet or damp hair, formulating cationic conditioning polymers with most anionic polymers is difficult.
However, several benefits would be derived from the incorporation of anionic polymers into wet into wet styling products. These benefits include superior style achievement and improved long lasting hold over polymers traditionally used in wet styling products. These benefits result from the improved adhesive properties of anionic polymers, s especially acrylate polymers. This improved adhesion, however, causes poor wet combing of the hair to which the polymer is applied. In many cases, wet combing with an anionic polymer based composition can be worse than combing untreated wet hair. Thus, this wet combing negative poses a significant problem to the wet styling product consumer. Therefore, there is a need for a wet styling product that can deliver improved wet combing as well as a long lasting hold. It would be desirable to provide a wet styling product containing an anionic styling polymer which does not suffer from the drawbacks of poor combing and feel attributes on wet or damp hair.
It has now been discovered hair care compositions comprising anionic styling polymers, zwitterionic conditioning polymers, and a suitable solvent provide superior style achievement and improved long-lasting hold over traditional wet styling polymers as well as improved wet hair combing feel.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide hair styling/conditioning compositions, containing anionic styling polymers and zwitterionic conditioning polymers which provide an improved wet combing and feel properties.
It is another object of this invention to provide hair styling/conditioning compositions that provide good style retention without unacceptable stiffness or stickiness. Another object of this invention is to provide hair styling/conditioning compositions that both look and feel natural.
It is another object of this invention to provide methods for styling, holding and conditioning hair.
These and other objects will become readily apparent from the detailed description which follows.